Excerpt from today: Only having one month left somewhere makes everything come in to perspective. It's kind of cool how that happens, it makes you spend everyday as something to cherish and something to get the most out of. Also, a kid peed on me at open market yesterday. I guess he wanted to pee on the grina.. Story: I was just buying some veggies at the open market and felt some water splash the back of my leg. I turn around to see a little boy around 2 or 3 with his willy out peeing right behind me. I think if he was was older he probably would have had better aim so I mainly got that upsplash... I gasped in shock only to see his mother not even phased by the event. I think I said gracias very sarcastically and turned back around to pay the veggie woman, who seemed appalled and sorry for me at least. I don't know if he was trying to pee on the grina or if he, like many of the other kids here just pees whenever and where ever. I did see him peeing again about 5 minutes later and his mom just kept on walking by. So.. i guess we need to teach some manners and definitely some hygiene.Okay back to Chan Chan and the roommates:
We held a bible conference at the church, presenting me two amazing roommates from Missouri for 10 days. It was really nice to have some new faces around here at the compound. These women came down to Peru to put on the conference. Ginny, one of Cherry's friends from Springfield and her sister, Shar had never been out of country. It was really fun watching them experience their time down here. Definitely brought some life into our lives down here as they took touristy pictures, bought things at market just to say that they did, and even packed sugar, coffee, and our special dishwashing soap with them to bring back to America. They definitely did not take their time down here for granted. Everything was an amazing experience. Exactly what traveling should be.
We traveled down to Trujillo with the ladies and even had Kevin in tow. Somehow I convinced him to get out of the compound for the day :-) (I'm just joking, if you ever read this Kevin, I know you get out). We went to see the Chan Chan ruins. Ruins being something that this country has a lot of, just meaning that it has MUCHO history! It's kind of wild being somewhere that was built in the 1300
's. Now, mainly just adobe walls, that from above must look like a giant rat maze, is in the process of restoration. They are trying to recreate the wonder this empire with it's claim to fame as the largest adobe city in the world, according to my Lonely Planet guide book of Peru (2007). The best part was the beginning of our tour through the city without a tourguide. We all just started making up our own stories for the city and what each room was. We had a great time taking pictures with the giant monkey statues and tiny clay pots they had turned into trashcans. I will have one of
those in my house when I grow up. :-) Halfway through our tour, we hopped on with the English speaking tour guide and her European tourists. Didn't really help all that much because of her THICK accent, but we did learn that they worshiped the pelican and sacrificed lots of virgins and other ritual sacrifices when the royalty died. A lot of the ruins were burial grounds and tombs, which were looted when the Spaniards came to take over the Empire. The succession of power as it was explained was the Chimu, Inca, then Spaniards, but was destroyed by El Nino floods. One of the sad parts of this tour was that some of the building here in Pacasmayo aren't much more advanced than the adobe huts that the Chimus and Incas were living in 700 years ago.
A very out of place pond in the middle of this adobe city in the middle of the desert
's. Now, mainly just adobe walls, that from above must look like a giant rat maze, is in the process of restoration. They are trying to recreate the wonder this empire with it's claim to fame as the largest adobe city in the world, according to my Lonely Planet guide book of Peru (2007). The best part was the beginning of our tour through the city without a tourguide. We all just started making up our own stories for the city and what each room was. We had a great time taking pictures with the giant monkey statues and tiny clay pots they had turned into trashcans. I will have one of
those in my house when I grow up. :-) Halfway through our tour, we hopped on with the English speaking tour guide and her European tourists. Didn't really help all that much because of her THICK accent, but we did learn that they worshiped the pelican and sacrificed lots of virgins and other ritual sacrifices when the royalty died. A lot of the ruins were burial grounds and tombs, which were looted when the Spaniards came to take over the Empire. The succession of power as it was explained was the Chimu, Inca, then Spaniards, but was destroyed by El Nino floods. One of the sad parts of this tour was that some of the building here in Pacasmayo aren't much more advanced than the adobe huts that the Chimus and Incas were living in 700 years ago.
A very out of place pond in the middle of this adobe city in the middle of the desert
A model of Chan Chan in from the Museum
One of the tombs were we learned about needing to sacrifice young women. We also saw a horribily staged mummy in the back of the 
tomb.Teaching the Peruvians and tourists how to throw away trash.
@ Huan Chaco after Chan Chan: I didn't try to throw this one back.. it was a little too big.
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